Game Report: Tuesday, June 27th at Florida

Florida 8, RAYS 4

[Fan Graphs]

Miguel Olivo smacked a pair of homers and drove in a career-high five runs, as the Marlins won their eighth straight home contest, topping the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 8-4, in the middle installment of a three-game series. Miguel Cabrera added a tape-measure, two-run shot for Florida, which received solid pitching from Ricky Nolasco to win for the third straight time. The Marlins scored the first eight runs to win for the 13th time in their last 16 games. Nolasco (6-4) allowed seven hits and three runs in six innings to bounce back from a loss at Baltimore last Wednesday. The 23-year-old right-hander was lifted after surrendering solo homers to Aubrey Huff, Greg Norton and Russell Branyan in the seventh. Julio Lugo also homered for the Devil Rays, losers of three in a row. Scott Kazmir (9-5) was roughed up for six hits and six runs in five innings to have his two-start winning streak snapped. Kazmir walked three and struck out eight, but surrendered a pair of homers.

[NBC 30]

How I Stacked Up

Here's what the '3 Up, 3 Down' you see on the sidebar (based strictly on my opinion) would have looked like had I gone with Win Probability...

3 Up
SS Julio Lugo: 5.4 WPA
RF Russell Branyan: 3.9 WPA
1B Greg Norton: 2.3 WPA
RP Chad Harville: 0.8 WPA

3 Down
SP Scott Kazmir: -20.7 WPA
2B Ty Wigginton: -11.5 WPA
CF Rocco Baldelli: -7.6 WPA
RP Edwin Jackson: -1.1 WPA

My Thoughts

Well, another white-washing in South Florida. Four solo shots composed the offense tonight, Scott Kazmir, to put it mildly, was off, and the Rays dropped their third in a row by a 8-4 final to the Florida Marlins. The Rays have not won in South Florida since July 3rd of 2004.

Simply, nothing went well for the Rays tonight. Scott Kazmir did not have a good start, giving up two monstrous home runs measured at 400 and 424 feet, respectively, and gave up six runs in five innings while still striking out an impressive eight, yet his inability to put some Marlins hitters away inflated that strikeout total.

Edwin Jackson didn't do so well in relief, giving up a two run shot that was the key play in the game, as it turned out, to spot the Fish an 8-0 lead. Although to his credit, Chad Harville was able to come out and lock down the Marlins for the two final innings of the game.

The offense was just not there, coming in little bunches during the seventh and eighth innings in the form of solo home runs, and it was all too little too late for the Rays in a game that was just out of their hands seemingly from the start.

About Last Night...
Fan Graphs
St. Petersburg Times
The Tampa Tribune
DevilRays.com